PIRANHA CNC DOVETAIL JOINTS FULL
For cutting sequence first I will use the rectangles and a ¼” bit to clear out the waste material to full depth. This is so the dovetail bit can plunge to full depth when doing a pocket cut without cutting the sides of your workpiece where you don’t want it to.
PIRANHA CNC DOVETAIL JOINTS PLUS
The length needs to be the thickness of the wood (0.5”) plus a little more. I round up to 0.5” for my spacing.įirst I layout three rectangles about 0.5” wide. So those parameters are all you need to complete the design.įirst thing to find out is what is the diameter of the dovetail bit at 0.5”(depth of cut) from the bottom? You can use trig, or you can just draw it in vectors to find out it is 0.359” and that is as close as you can get for your dovetail to dovetail spacing. It just looks less clunky than ¾” for this size. at the bottom) and an 8-degree side angle (from the center of the tool to the side is 8 degrees) you can pick one up in HD or Lowes.įor a medium sized box, say 6” to 15” across the front, I like to use ½” thick material. In this case I’m using a dovetail bit with a 0.5” major diameter (biggest dia. In designing dovetail cuts in the software, the design must make its concessions to the tool used. many small dovetails spread far apart) and are more than strong enough. For box sides this gives you plenty of surface area for glue up, the dovetails look like a more prominent feature (vs. 2” to 4” gets 2 dovetails, and 4-5 gets 3 dovetails. Board width of 2” or less gets one dovetail. As a rule of thumb, I like to follow the old woodworker’s standards for building a box with dovetails. I have not used the dovetail gadgets that you can find on the Vectric website or user produced gadgets, but some of the advice below will also be very useful with them. This is how you can usually tell if a dovetail was machine cut or hand cut. With hand cutting you can make small pins, much smaller than with CNC because the cutter size limits you. CNC cutting is the aesthetics of the design. The biggest difference in hand cutting vs. I see a lot of the paradise design, which is a good box, but I see very little to none with dovetails on the CNC, so I thought it might be good to pass on some of my knowledge to you so when you’re tired of cutting signs and plaques (which make great box tops), you’ll be able to knock out a dovetail box quickly. My go to have most recently been the dovetail joint, and I love cutting those by hand, but have done many with my CNC. Some with box joints, most with dovetails, and some with special CNC designed joints. PS I made a nice cube out of some good ply and it went together as above, but after finishing it and clear lacquering it several times the end result is really nice in that I like the colour change at the end grain showing in the joints.I’ve made a lot of boxes for people and myself. Any suggestion will be more than welcome, as I may be heading down the wrong street. Is it in the CUT ALLOWANCE on the Toolpath Creator. So how do I ease the joint a tad, about 10 thou might do it. I looked at all the videos to learn the process, and found several little anomilies that had to be addressed before the joints were acceptable though on the tight side, which left no room for the glue and had to be tapped into place. I am now hoping to make some really nice boxes for gifts that are carved and decorated possibly with inlays, Done this with butt or motred joints Well you get the idea. I am now about 75% blind, as AMD progresses, but you adapt to survive. This is one reason why I ventured into the world pf CNC a some years ago. A long time ago I was able to make dovetail joints by hand which was great until AMD struck my one remaining eye.